


pins and needles on my tongue

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 03, mention of canon relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 07:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11641605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: He’s a SHIELD agent alone in a foreign country and a stranger is taking an undue interest in him. He probably should’ve noticed that sooner.





	pins and needles on my tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a first sentence prompt from plinys.
> 
> Title from Kelly Clarkson's Heartbeat Song.
> 
> You'll notice there's a question mark for the total chapters, which hopefully will act as incentive to myself to write more for this 'verse but heaven only knows how long that might take. So for now I hope you can all appreciate this as a standalone ... something.

There’s something comforting about being in a town where nobody knows your name. Sitting outside the little cafe next to the cobblestone street, he could be anyone. A millionaire looking for a new country house or a kid on a European adventure or a businessman checking out the local culture between meetings. He could be anyone at all. The people here look right past him without recognition or even a hint of pity. It’s nice, being free of that for a while.

And yet the coffee he bought while riding high on anonymity is cooling on the tabletop while he checks his phone. Theoretically it’s to remind himself of his mission here, but instead of bringing up an image of his target his thumbs take him back to the reminder text that his reservation for two is tonight. He’s lost count of how many of these have come and gone and up to now he’s always responded with apologies they wouldn’t be able to make it and a request the reservation be moved back another week. But now…

He sets the phone upside down on the tabletop and looks at anything else—the twin girls driving their mother mad inside the cafe proper, the pigeons eating a fallen pastry on the sidewalk, the woman staring at him.

He sits a little straighter. He’s a SHIELD agent alone in a foreign country and a stranger is taking an undue interest in him. He probably should’ve noticed that sooner.

She says something he doesn’t understand but thinks might be the local language’s equivalent of “sorry.”

“English?” he asks pathetically.

She smiles. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to intrude but you appeared distressed.” There’s a slight inflection to her tone that might be because she’s a non-native speaker or it might be an invitation to unload.

He’s a SHIELD agent in a foreign country and a stranger is talking to him, he reminds himself. He can’t afford to unload. “I’m fine,” he says.

She doesn’t believe him. And why should she? He doesn’t even believe himself. Right now, somewhere in the world—somewhere Fitz isn’t allowed- isn’t _allowing himself_ to know about—Coulson is transporting the monolith to a secure location where it can never hurt anyone else again. However it manages that. Because no matter how many times the others call him the smartest man they’ve ever met, Fitz still hasn’t the faintest idea what the bloody thing does.

A slim hand settles over his. He didn’t notice the woman move closer; she’s specialist quiet. “My name is Aida. Do you need help?” she asks with a sincerity that makes something in the vicinity of his heart snap.

He tugs his hand out from under hers and, feeling cold, reaches for his cup. It doesn’t do him much since it’s gone tepid on him, but it gives him something to do at least. “Are you a therapist, Aida?” he asks. It’d be just his luck to run into one after the others have spent months nudging him to talk to Dr. Garner.

“No, but I’ve been told I’m easy to talk to. And it is customary to respond with one’s name when someone gives you theirs.”

He feels his lips turning up all on their own for the first time in … lord, he doesn’t even know. “It’s also customary to sit when talking to someone who’s sitting.” He gestures to the stiff metal chair on the other side of the table. “I’m – Leopold.” After he’s said it he tells himself it’s a compromise. He’s not technically undercover here but it’s always safer, as an agent, not to identify oneself. The truth, however, is closer to cowardice. He was Leo growing up and Fitz in school and ever since the Academy he’s been one half of-

He wants to be someone else is the thing.

Aida settles into the chair with thoughtless elegance. “Are you running from something, Leopold?”

The question is as odd as it is abrupt. “What makes you say that?”

Her eyes drop to the tabletop, to just the spot that—if the table weren’t there—she’d be looking beneath his chair. “That’s a very large bag for a day out sightseeing.”

“I might be backpacking across Europe,” he says, remembering his earlier fantasies.

She shakes her head once. “It isn’t big enough for that. And it appears hastily packed.”

He squirms. She’s right about that. When Coulson told him he was moving the monolith, he just … he couldn’t be there. It’s one more end than he can take. There was his last lead turning up a dead end (literally nothing but _death_ stamped on a bit of faded parchment). And then having to face her parents and admit she’s really gone. And then last week with the wake.

There’s a part of him thinks he should be there, at least to supervise the Playground end of things, but he can’t say goodbye again.

Aida leans forward, her hand reaches across the tabletop until it nearly touches his. “Are you looking for someone, Leopold?”

He is, actually. That’s his mission here, a hunt for a new project to get his mind off the last one. “Yeah.” He rolls his shoulders back, sighs out the worst of the grief dragging his thoughts down. “Yeah, I’m in town looking for a Dr. Holden Radcliffe. He’s kind of a recluse but I heard he moved out this way.”

Aida’s placid expression freezes for a moment and he knows before she recovers that she knows him.

Slowly she smiles. “I am Dr. Radcliffe’s assistant. I can take you to him if you’d like. I’m certain he can help you.”

He agrees and in short order they’re off, but he keeps his pace slow and falls behind whenever the town’s narrow streets allow. It’s almost too easy that he’s been found by the one woman in town who works for the man he’s hunting. And he didn’t expect to be greeted warmly by anyone in Radcliffe’s circle, not when the man fell off the grid more than a year ago.

Radcliffe’s got half a dozen degrees and has dabbled in even more fields, but he used to be the world’s leading prosthetic engineer. Half of Mike’s implants were based off of research that Radcliffe pioneered. If Fitz is going to throw himself into making Coulson the best artificial hand possible, he wants input from the master.

Aida leads him deeper into town, far from the bilingual signs and kitschy shops set up for the tourists. The houses they pass are smaller, older, but their charm is less cookie-cutter. The colors are mismatched, the roads uneven, the people less friendly. It feels less like an amusement park and more like a real town.

Chickens dance out of their way when they take a turn down a winding alley Fitz never would have noticed if Aida hadn’t pointed it out. He shifts his bag off one of his shoulders, bringing it around so he can transfer his ICER into his jacket pocket. Just in case.

“Here we are,” Aida says, pushing open a rickety wooden gate just like every other one they’ve passed.

“Ladies first,” he says.

She nods graciously and goes on ahead. The yard they pass through is overgrown with weeds. Small animals scurry for deeper cover, filling the air with rustling. The tiny house looks much the same—peeling paint of an unidentifiable color, shutters falling off hinges, a door that creaks when Aida opens it—but inside it’s a different story. Nothing can hide the architecture, but aside from that they might have just stepped into an office in any modern university. The furnishings are all new or near to it, the paintings on the walls are prints of lesser known masterpieces, the bookshelves are full to bursting with everything from Homer to Shakespeare, Aesop to Baum, Darwin to Dawkins. He’s got a little of everything.

“I’ll let the doctor know you’re here,” Aida says. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Fitz doesn’t have to be told twice. The desk is a mess of drawings and diagrams and just a cursory glance on entering was enough to kick Fitz’s instincts into high gear. This little consultation mission is looking more suspicious every second. Radcliffe’s got drawings of limbs showing muscles and veins, fine, but he’s also got sketches of open skulls from a dozen different angles and anatomy that just isn’t possible.

Fitz is no biologist, he’s not- He’s not that, but knows that human torsos don’t have scales and they don’t have extra arms protruding from their sides or wings popping out of their shoulders.

Unless they’re Inhumans.

He drops the drawings in shock at the same moment that slim hand presses against his collarbone, holding him back against Aida’s chest. She’s stronger than he would’ve thought. And he thought earlier that she was quiet on her feet; he should’ve kept it in mind.

“Just relax, Leopold,” she says as a needle pierces his neck and something cold slides along his veins, making his limbs heavy. His fingers go numb against the side of his ICER, his hand slumps out of the pocket.

“Stop,” he croaks, but that one word takes the last of his strength.

She drops to her knees, gently lowering him so he doesn’t crack his head open on the side of the desk. She brushes her fingers over his scalp, her touch warm and soothing against the chill of the drug. “I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal, but the doctor will help you to better understand your new gifts.”

No, he thinks. No, he’s not an Inhuman. His tongue won’t work right to say it. He feels like he did after he woke up in that hospital bed, his whole body too big and awkward and wrong around him.

How many of them has she lured out here so the doctor can “help” them? And what will he do when he finds out Fitz isn’t one of them?

“It’s all right,” she soothes. “Sleep now, Leopold. You need run no longer.”

He thinks now is precisely the time to start running, but darkness is wrapping around his mind and he doesn’t have the strength to do anything but shut his eyes on Aida’s serene smile.

 


End file.
